FBD Cross-section manager

The FBD Cross-section Manager (CSM) utility creates and manages cross-section definitions that are used within the Resultant Force & Moment utility.

This utility contains tools for defining cross-sections, which are defined by an element set, node set, summation node, and a local result coordinate system. It also features semi-automatic generation of element and node sets for defining cross-sections. Functionality is also available to reorder FBD cross-sections.

The FBD Cross-section Manager interface has two creation methods available for cross-section definition: manual and (semi-) automatic. The Advanced options section provides the means to semi-automatically create cross-section element and node sets for beam-like structures with regular meshes. This auto-create cross-section capability requires a continuous mesh with rows of nodes (of any orientation) to work properly. The mesh shouldn’t have any discontinuities (holes, gaps, and so on) and must have identifiable rows of nodes, starting from the selected nodes and progressing along the length of the selected elements.